Focus groups: Their candidates lost in the Michigan and Texas primaries. Now what?

Some voters who backed losing candidates in two key Senate primaries this year are still wrestling with whether to support their party’s nominee on Election Day, with massive implications for who controls the Senate majority next year.

Michigan Democrat Abdul El-Sayed and Texas Republican Ken Paxton are both trying to stitch their parties back together for battleground races after divisive primaries. Two focus groups — one with Michiganders who supported Democratic Rep. Haley Stevens’ unsuccessful Senate bid, and another with Texans who backed Republican Sen. John Cornyn in that primary — reveal how some rank-and-file voters are struggling to process personal concerns about the nominees alongside a desire to be loyal to their party.

The focus groups, produced by Syracuse University and the research firms Engagious and Sago and observed by NBC News, showed Cornyn voters who see Paxton as corrupt but are hesitant to hand Democrats a Senate seat. In Michigan, the Stevens voters worried about whether El-Sayed is too extreme — and some said they were concerned about his Muslim faith and his allegiances.

Both narratives echo how their general election opponents — former Rep. Mike Rogers, the Republican Senate nominee in Michigan, and state Rep. James Talarico, the Democratic Senate nominee in Texas — have sought to define them.

“I’m split down the middle. In this instance, I really feel that I am looking at the lesser of two evils and I’m not sure which that is,” said Kathleen S., a 62-year-old Republican from Comal County in Texas.

Unlike a poll, which uses statistical methods to demonstrate how a larger population feels, focus groups dig into deeper detail about how a handful of people feel about key questions. In these two 90-minute conversations, the Cornyn voters were more open to looking past ethical concerns about Paxton, the Texas attorney general.

The Stevens voters, meanwhile, included more political independents, and they were more hesitant to back El-Sayed, a former public health official in Michigan.

“In Michigan, I heard undecided Stevens voters growing nervous with El-Sayed, and in Texas I heard Cornyn voters abandoning their preferred candidate, Talarico, in order to put loyalty to the GOP first,” said Rich Thau, president of Engagious , who moderated the groups. “These undecided voters truly contorted themselves as they struggled to justify a choice they feared they’d later regret.”

Worries about El-Sayed

The group of seven Stevens primary voters were not dyed-in-the-wool Democrats. The group included five independents (four of whom voted for President Donald Trump in 2024) and two Democrats. Their hesitance about El-Sayed may reflect how general election swing voters are digesting their choice, rather than the Democratic base.

But overall, only two of those seven said they were leaning toward voting for El-Sayed. The two Democratic voters split between El-Sayed and Rogers. Stevens herself has endorsed El-Sayed.

Isaac W., a 29-year-old Democrat from Oakland County who voted for then-Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024, said he is leaning toward Rogers but hopes other states deliver a Democratic-controlled Senate.

Isaac views an El-Sayed victory as “almost inevitable” and is hoping to send a message with his vote that El-Sayed’s brand of politics isn’t as popular with voters as other Democrats like Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, who is running for governor.

“I want people to see when they look at the election results that El-Sayed was running far behind Benson, so they can see that a normal Democrat is going to be the better choice for most things, and that a young, charismatic, slippery politician who will flirt with extremists and not answer questions is not going to succeed as well,” he said.

Isaac said El-Sayed has addressed his top concern, the “existential risk” prompted by the rise in artificial intelligence, and he understands that more Democratic votes in the Senate would push back on Trump, whose administration he described as corrupt.

But while criticizing El-Sayed as too extreme, Isaac praised Rogers’ recent decision to break with Trump on tariffs, saying it helped to change his mind about the Republican.

“Up to that point, I thought he was just a lockstep Republican following Trump’s lead like all the rest of them, but then he was willing to say what is true and obvious, and I respect him for that,” he said.

Danny S., a 64-year-old Democrat, disagreed and emphatically backed El-Sayed.

“He seems more transparent than Rogers does. I think Rogers is just jumping on, just an opportunist,” he said, before adding that Rogers “didn’t do nothing last time,” a reference to the Republican’s seven-term stint in the House that ended in 2014.

Four of the five pro-Stevens independents said they’re leaning toward backing Rogers. They felt El-Sayed was too extreme, echoing the message that Rogers and his allies have spent tens of millions of dollars to hammer on the airwaves.

“El-Sayed would never get my vote. He’s way too extremist and we don’t need another extremist in Washington, D.C., especially from the Democratic Party that I used to belong to. I just think Rogers is a better candidate,” said Heather S., a 52-year-old independent who voted for Trump in 2024.

Brittany E., a 36-year-old independent who also voted for Trump, said that while she had previously been leaning toward El-Sayed, she’s since shifted more toward Rogers because she isn’t sure if El-Sayed can be effective.

She went on to add that El-Sayed has spent so much of the campaign defending himself from attacks that she isn’t sure what he believes or “how he’s going to make change.”

“I would just tell him to be more honest and open to criticism without anger,” she said.

A handful of these voters repeatedly questioned whether El-Sayed would adequately represent all of Michigan — like Michael D., a 51-year-old independent voter who backed Harris in 2024 but is now leaning toward Rogers.

“I think he’s kind of, I don’t want to say an extremist because he’s not. I think his just views are not basically representative of this entire party,” he said.

“I think it’s because it’s more focused on one particular group where it’s not just basically the everybody,” Michael D. said, later clarifying that he was referring to Muslim Americans

Michael D. was not the only voter to suggest that El-Sayed, who would be the first Muslim senator if elected, would not represent all Michiganders

Heather S., a 52-year-old independent who voted for Trump in 2024, said she’s supporting Rogers because she believes he’s “not as extreme” and “even though he is a Trumpster, that maybe he can bring something else to the party, be able to work with both parties.”

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